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The Guardian is a leftist/progressive word-product-extruder. They have a credible claim neither to pop-culture insight nor to journalistic credibility. Like many nozzles studding the meta-Blue-Tribe superstructure, they say what they feel will be convenient to be seen saying at this moment in time. They arrived at simulacrum-4 many years ago, and are unlikely to ever leave.
It is not in the perceived interest of anyone involved in the extrusion of this particular word-product that Charlie Kirk be perceived as anything but a joke. It is not in their interest for people to take Progressive political murders seriously. It is not in their interest for people to take broad-based, grass-roots support for political murders of sympathetic victims seriously. Thus, it is important to them that the victim not be perceived as sympathetic. Unfortunately, a lot of people took both Kirk's murder and the obvious, undeniable and very widespread support for his murder quite seriously, and so this is a problem that needs to be dealt with.
The memeing of Kirk is the desired outcome of those managing this particular extrusion. They are not impartially reporting a fact of interest, they are selectively reporting whatever facts or slogans seem to make their desired end-state more probable.
The above three points cover the large majority of what it seems to me is useful to say about the article itself.
Yet! Growth mindset. On the other hand, his death did, I think, have a permanent and in my view highly salutory effect on intra-right wing discourse, creating large amounts of useful common knowledge within Red Tribe that move the conversation forward in a useful way.
Agreed. And yet, consensus on this point could not be achieved within our society, and common knowledge on that point likewise was generated within Blue Tribe. When the shoe is on the other foot, you are going to see large portions of Red Tribe responding to mirrored demands for unity against hate responding with quotes from prominent Blues from the Kirk aftermath, and flat rejection of the "unity" frame. If you would like an example of this process in action, check the discourse over the recent anti-immigrant riots in Ireland. Social cohesion is not an unlimited resource, and things like this are how it goes away.
It kind of was though, wasn't it?
Another way to frame this is that the right called on the ancient bonds of brotherhood and unity, and the reply was a brief period of initial, halfhearted opprobrium quickly transitioning into complaints about how these appeals to bedrock principles of social comity were all just "going too far".
Blue Tribe had no interest in allowing Charlie Kirk a legacy before his death, and they certainly have no interest in allowing him one after his death. Obviously, it is in their interest if Charlie Kirk's legacy is as a ridiculous meme, and to the extent that anyone anywhere is treating him this way, they will report it, and to the extent anyone anywhere takes him and his death seriously, they will either mock them or ignore them as seems most immediately advantageous. That is not my understanding of Kirk's legacy, nor the understanding of other Reds I encounter. I have no reason to prefer your interpretation to mine, nor to believe their interpretation is more accurate than mine. As for the youtube-slop video... I do not think your or the Guardian's read on such portents is accurate.
Can you please make this more explicit? Specifically, what common knowledge was established and how things have moved forward? Because from where I stood, it seemed like the Right squandered a generational opportunity to actually root out the violence-promoters on the left, instead deciding to flounder and squabble thanks in part to conspiratorial nonsense peddled by people like Candace Owens.
Why do you think such a generational opportunity existed? It's not like a local version of Pinochet or Franco is in power.
Because the republican party controlled the presidency, congress, and senate.
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